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Larian Studio founder Swen Vincke was kind enough to waste his precious time answering a couple of questions. Initially the interview was all about Dragon Commander, Larian's upcoming RPG/Strategy hybrid, but then we digressed a bit. Keep in mind that those questions were asked and answered in December, but since the frontpage still isn't up yet I'm publishing the interview here and now in the news forum and will add it to the content system properly at an unspecified later point.

ᛚᛟᚷᚨᚦᛟᚱᛖ᛫ᚹᛟᛞᚨᚾ᛫ᚹᛁᚷᛁᚦᛟᚾᚨᚱIf you worship your enemy, you are defeated. If you adopt your enemy’s religion, you are enslaved. If you breed with your enemy, you are destroyed. Polydoros of Sparta (741 to c. 665 BC)

He comes up with such silly examples that the game seems to be worth playing only for seeing this examples in action.

You are a toy, a fantasy. Self-deprecation isnt old school . Its high school... Freedom and splender my dear fiends.

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Live long and Prosper!

Here's an idea for those who love stories in games so much. Watch a great movie, like Seven Samurai, with a game controller in your hand. Keep pressing buttons and moving your thumbs about during the movie. I promise you will enjoy the characters and story in this game a lot more than Skyrim.

I'm not bitter about publishers, I just see most of them as a hindrance. For whatever historic reason they managed to put themselves between developers and players and in the past as a developer there was no real choice but to go through them if you wanted to get your game sold. I don't think that's been beneficial for the evolution and quality of gameplay. I also don't think they should be the ones dictating what gets made and what not. Because that determines what gets played and what not, and imho that should be up to players, not a couple of guys in an office who think they know what players want.

Just imagine that all the money lost on middle-men during the history of videogames was actually used for development. We'd have a very different state of the art.

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But in the same breath, the ability to do targeted promotions helps a lot with the backend of the sales curve, and it's something you can't do in retail.

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Huh? Bargain bins disagree.

Divine Divinity is still selling very decent numbers thanks to Good Old Games, almost 10 years after it's release.

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I still sometimes see Shogun: Total War (the original one, not Shogun 2), Gothic, Blizzard Box (Diablo, Warcraft 2 and Starcraft in one package) or other old games on shelves, so one has to assume they're still selling. But it of course depends on the game and Germany is supposedly a special case...

In any case, you can rest assured that developers publishing directly on digital platforms make a lot more money than they would if they'd go through a publisher via retail.

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...and there is that.

"Do I consider abortion an evil or a right ? And if I consider it evil, at what point does it become evil ? From the moment of conception, or at a later stage ?"

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Is that actually in the game or is that Sven explaining their take on moral ambiguity?
Anyway, I see potential for shittiness here. It depends strongly on expectations and viewpoints, both of the dev and the player. Much potential for devs clashing with players (like DAO did for me). (EG: the fundamentalist christian player gets disappointed because abortion doesn't lead to god smiting the PC. The feminazi is disappointed because the abortion doesn't lead to the PC being commended for respecting the woman's right to choose. The normal player being disappointed by being pushed into either of those viewpoints.)

Anyway, an intriguing concept for a game. The crux will lie in dragon gameplay and Larian's handling of C&C.

Depends on your definition of RPG I guess. There's really a lot of choice and consequence where we did our best to bring you situations you'll easily recognize, albeit in a fantasy setting. And we also did our best to attach tangible consequences to these choices. It's not only going to be "will I give npc X the sword or keep it for myself" but rather "Do I consider abortion an evil or a right ? And if I consider it evil, at what point does it become evil ? From the moment of conception, or at a later stage ?".

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This is so utterly... codexian (first, define an RPG; then, move to GD and discuss abortion)... that I'll be disappointed if one of the options isn't Islam has all the answers

What savage manners, what people! What senseless nights, what uninteresting, uneventful days! The rage for card-playing, the gluttony, the drunkenness, the continual talk always about the same thing. Useless pursuits and conversations always about the same things absorb the better part of one's time, the better part of one's strength, and in the end there is left a life groveling and curtailed, worthless and trivial, and there is no escaping or getting away from it -- just as though one were in a madhouse or a prison.

The frightening bit was the revelation that only 7-17% of a developer's group works on gameplay, and I won't be surprised if I find that this percentage is a lot smaller in larger studios. This really is a strange industry. Can you imagine a car manufacturer where over 70% of the developing team only focused on making the body look nice?

I probably shouldn't bring that up since, at this point, it is likely the case.

"I don't know what the hell's in there, but it's weird and pissed off, whatever it is."
"Pray for a true peace in space!"
"All should hear the words of Karras... the woooorrrds of Karras."

The frightening bit was the revelation that only 7-17% of a developer's group works on gameplay, and I won't be surprised if I find that this percentage is a lot smaller in larger studios. This really is a strange industry. Can you imagine a car manufacturer where over 70% of the developing team only focused on making the body look nice?

I probably shouldn't bring that up since, at this point, it is likely the case.

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Right. And Divinity 2 really wasn't that cinematic to begin with. Games like DA2 or TW2, well I'd imagine the percentage of "production-value focused" effort would be much higher. And it shows.

ᛚᛟᚷᚨᚦᛟᚱᛖ᛫ᚹᛟᛞᚨᚾ᛫ᚹᛁᚷᛁᚦᛟᚾᚨᚱIf you worship your enemy, you are defeated. If you adopt your enemy’s religion, you are enslaved. If you breed with your enemy, you are destroyed. Polydoros of Sparta (741 to c. 665 BC)

The title for Divine Divinity was okay with me, very Pratchett-esque. It sounds dumb til you get to the joke, assuming you even get it, but then again the game is very light hearted so I had no problem with the title being humorous too.

Anyway, I see potential for shittiness here. It depends strongly on expectations and viewpoints, both of the dev and the player. Much potential for devs clashing with players (like DAO did for me). (EG: the fundamentalist christian player gets disappointed because abortion doesn't lead to god smiting the PC. The feminazi is disappointed because the abortion doesn't lead to the PC being commended for respecting the woman's right to choose. The normal player being disappointed by being pushed into either of those viewpoints.)

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I'd FFFFUUUU- in advance if it was made by anyone else, but I think Lar has enough distance to himself and his own opinions, and is enough to not turn the game into derpy author tract (see EZKeel's user-made SP maps for Unreal for an example how horrible those can get - EZKeel was a christard getting through a crisis of faith at that moment and desperately trying to reinforce his fiath. It showed.)

Failing that, I hope he's not a dumbass and thus his opinions overlap with mine in 100%, precluding any value dissonance in my case.

The frightening bit was the revelation that only 7-17% of a developer's group works on gameplay, and I won't be surprised if I find that this percentage is a lot smaller in larger studios. This really is a strange industry. Can you imagine a car manufacturer where over 70% of the developing team only focused on making the body look nice?

I probably shouldn't bring that up since, at this point, it is likely the case.

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Right. And Divinity 2 really wasn't that cinematic to begin with. Games like DA2 or TW2, well I'd imagine the percentage of "production-value focused" effort would be much higher. And it shows.

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Again with the Twitcher bashing...can't stand it that sold more than a million just on PC eh? I can only imagine the delicious tears you will shed when the console edition sells even more thus creating the revenue for a further continuation of THE WITCHER!!!!

The Greek Prosper(Takis76)

Programamtismo(Fowyr) knows from nothing and now he tells me shit laying magic bar laying many wallsets.
He is talking to himself. Troll the cuckold.

Again with the Twitcher bashing...can't stand it that sold more than a million just on PC eh? I can only imagine the delicious tears you will shed when the console edition sells even more thus creating the revenue for a further continuation of THE WITCHER!!!!

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Why would I shed tears? I don't have any ill wishes for CDProjekt. They can sell their console game on consoles as much as they want, with my best wishes and my blessing.

ᛚᛟᚷᚨᚦᛟᚱᛖ᛫ᚹᛟᛞᚨᚾ᛫ᚹᛁᚷᛁᚦᛟᚾᚨᚱIf you worship your enemy, you are defeated. If you adopt your enemy’s religion, you are enslaved. If you breed with your enemy, you are destroyed. Polydoros of Sparta (741 to c. 665 BC)

I've visited their (first) office when I was still a kid and later applied for a QA position (which I didn't get). It's amazing how they're still going and how far they've come since then. I wish them all the best and I hope being independent brings them everything they want. I also hope for an awesome dragon commander offcourse While high fantasy isn't really my thing the c&c part of this title looks promising.

Yeah, BG was a hardcore RPG, especially compared to the casual shite like Realms of Arkania, Wizardry, and Darklands.

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If you cannot get into Mass Effect n Dragon Age, perhaps RPG's are not you're stuff? Or give Oblivion a try, Bethesda usualy made there games for casual players not like Bioware that stickies to more hardcore oldschool RPG mecanics of deep, engrossing storylines and character delvopement.